Weston, Lexington young dancers relish 'Nutcracker' roles

By Iris Fanger, Correspondent

Monday

Dec 3, 2018 at 2:03 PMDec 3, 2018 at 2:03 PM

BOSTON — For more than 50 years, the Boston Ballet has opened the Christmas season by bringing “The Nutcracker” to delight us, with an evergreen tree that grows before our eyes, a dashing Nutcracker Prince who defeats the Mouse King and tons of snowflakes falling from above the stage onto a swirling corps de ballet.

Not the least of the ballet’s charms are the troupes of children who fill the stage, alternating in roles that personify the season, from reindeer to little girls dressed up in party clothes and tiny mice snacking on the remains of the holiday feast. Heading the cast of children this year are Mia Steedle of Weston as Clara, and Lexington’s Seiya Saneyoshi as her brother, Fritz.

“The Nutcracker” tells the story of a young girl, Clara, gifted with a nutcracker doll who transforms into a prince and leads her on an adventure out into the night. The first scene is set at a Christmas party in Clara’s home where she and her bratty younger brother, Fritz, are hosting a crowd of their friends. Each of these leading roles is shared by several children over the month-long run.

Both Steedle and Saneyoshi are veterans of earlier productions of “The Nutcracker.” Steedle does not remember much about seeing her first performance of “The Nutcracker” when she was 3 years old but her mother assures her that she declared she wanted to be “up on stage like the Sugar Plum Fairy.” She started ballet classes that year and joined the annual productions at age 9, cast as a doll. Part of a musical family, she also plays the cello.

Saneyoshi moved to Lexington three years ago from the Bay area in California. When he saw the ballet there, he “was intrigued,” he says. One of three boys in his intermediate class at the Boston Ballet School’s Newton studio, he takes classes after school five days a week while also studying piano. Now 13, he is in eighth grade at the William Diamond Middle School. With friends at the ballet school, he says he has encountered other people who are confused about “why I do ballet. I try not to surround myself with those people,” referring to the American misconceptions about men in ballet.

At a late afternoon rehearsal at the Boston Ballet South End studio, Steedle and Saneyoshi were practicing their sister-brother relationship. Although she is 17 and a bit older than the other children in the party scene, she is petite enough to look the part.

"I think Clara is very loving and caring. I try to be the older cousin to the younger girls,” she says. Saneyoshi believes that Fritz is “jealous of Clara all the time. He is mischievous but does the bad things to get attention.”

Steedle admits that Clara displays a full range of emotions including snapping back at Fritz when he steals the nutcracker doll. “You can’t have that. He’s mine,” she mimes.

The rehearsal is led by Miranda Weese, former principal dancer at New York City Ballet, now retired from the stage and serving as the children’s ballet mistress at the BB. She finds it easy to teach “The Nutcracker,” because “I have about 30 years of experience dancing in the ballet,” she says.

It’s fitting to have a ballerina from George Balanchine’s company coaching the Boston production. Balanchine, who mounted the NYCB’s “Nutcracker” in 1954, was BB founder E. Virginia Williams’ mentor. His production is the grand-daddy of all the others in America, including Boston.

Under Weese’s gaze, Steedle dances on pointe with confidence, displaying a beautiful port de bras (manner of carrying her arms) as she sails through her many solos. Saneyoshi takes the stage with a joie de vivre that marks him a born performer.

Currently promoted to trainee - a group of 10 boys and 10 girls - at the Boston Ballet, Steedle is still part of the school where she takes a full schedule of classes: technique, pointe, modern dance, character work and Pilates. Now a senior, she attended Weston High School for two years before switching to online classes. “It’s all day, every day at the studio. We try to find time for the homework. It’s hard, but we want to be here, so we make it work,” she says.

As a trainee, she is also learning to understudy the corps de ballet. She just finished rehearsals for “Coppelia,” (to be shown in the spring) and has started on the snow scene and Waltz of the Flowers from “The Nutcracker.”

”I don’t know if I’ll actually get to dance the roles this year,” she says, however given the ballet’s long run and the vagaries of winter colds and sniffles, she might be called into action.

Saneyoshi hopes to continue ballet training throughout high school but is not sure he sees it as a career. “I like science,” he says.

Steedle is different, although she wants to attend college. “If I am offered a position in the company when I turn 18, I would take it. I feel I’ve been working for this all my life. I’ve grown up watching the Boston Ballet and always wanted to be a dancer here,” she says.